Dustings #112

As most of you know by now, the Vanishing Inc warehouse was wiped out by a fire last week. No one was hurt. And the response from everyone affected has been fairly positive and optimistic given the circumstances. So you may expect me to come here and take the situation lightly. Especially given the fact that I’ve been suggesting for a decade that the “business relationship” between Josh and Andi is only a cover for something else.

You probably expect me to say, "fire investigators have conclusively determined that the fire originated from a spark caused by the friction of one biological entity being repeatedly thrust into another with what they describe as 'impressive vigor.'"

C’mon, guys. Now's not the time for such things.

Although Murphy’s Magic may not have my sense of decorum. As Sean P. pointed out to me, look what’s on their “new releases”…

Oookay.

At any rate, make sure you’re on Vanishing Inc’s mailing list or follow their blog to keep up with the best ways to support them as they rebuild.

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Bouncing headphones, a fun little idea with Distracted Artist potential from Javier Fuenmayor. Full details can be found here…

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If you ever do a trick with a gimmicked Sharpie and you get called out by your spectator afterward for using a “trick marker,” just do this… Reach into your pocket and say, “You’re right. It’s not a normal Sharpie. You caught me.”

Then pull out one of these self-defense Sharpies, uncap it, and stab them in the fucking neck.

#jerxhecklerstoppers

Spont: 30-Day Challenge

Last month, Oliver Meech sent in some ideas for Sponts, and I’ll be sharing at least a couple of them with you in the next week or two. Here’s the first:

Do magic versions of existing 'mini quests' that people do. E.g. Like you get printable tick-box charts for a 30/60-day Press Ups challenge (or so I've heard from friends who actually work out!), you could make up something similar for magic.

This is good. I always like putting the spectator in the position of helping me. People are so much more comfortable in that role than in the role of “spectator” or “person who should be impressed by what they’re seeing.” In my experience, if you seem to be doing what you’re doing for some other reason than their reaction, it relaxes people and allows them to actually be more genuine and less reserved with their reactions.

What Oliver is suggesting is having something similar to a Plank Challenge…

For example, you know those versions of Out of This World that just use 10 or 12 cards? That could work well for something like this.

You could have a sheet that says, “Color Intuition Challenge.”

Day 1-25 gradually works your way up to being able to determine the colors of a full deck of cards

Day 1 - Separate a deck face-up in under 30 seconds.

Day 2 - 30 minute meditation focusing on red cards.

Day 3 - 30 minute meditation focusing on black cards.

Day 4 - Rest

Day 5 - Mix 2 red and 2 black cards face-down, separate by color face down until correct.

Day 6 - Mix 4 red and 4 black cards face-down, separate by color face down until correct.

And so on.

Up to day 25, the “challenge” is all about your ability to find.

On day 26 you begin to attempt to channel that ability through someone else. As they are meant to separate 4 cards, 2 red and 2 black.

On day 27, the challenge is to get them to separate a mixed group of 12 cards.

Up through day 30, where they separate the whole deck.

You have the printout of this challenge, which has ✔ next to every day, through day 26.

Now you can ask someone for their help and introduce this printout, or you can just leave it out somewhere to be “discovered” by someone you’re spending time with.

You tell them about how it works. It’s a 30-Day Challenge designed to build certain abilities.

“I’m pretty good at knowing the colors on my own. But now I’m on the part where you channel the ability through someone else, which I have much less confidence in. I did it yesterday with my friend, Simon. But that was only four cards. It feels like it could have been luck. The odds with 12 cards are like 5000 to 1.”

So instead of a spectator randomly separating 6 red cards from 6 black cards, they are part of this much larger story and progression.

By putting them near the end, but not right at the end, of this challenge, I can also do other tricks for them with a similar premise, if they’re interested. A couple of weeks later, if they ask about the challenge and if I completed it, I can now show them a full deck version of Out of the World.

Giving your spectators a reason to consider that this brief exchange is part of something much bigger is a strong way to get them to give more weight to the trick in their mind.

OOTW is just an example effect. You could do it with anything, really. Perhaps it’s a 30-Day Rubik’s Cube Challenge. It starts off normally enough. Solve the cube in 10 minutes. Then the time gets shorter each day. And near the end you just have a split second. Or you’re supposed to solve it so it matches a random cube mixed by the spectator.

You could use this technique for believable skills like memory, gambling sleights, psychological observation.

Or completely unbelievable skills like vanishing a coin. If you have a super clean coin vanish, one of the issues with it is that it’s over so quickly. And if you make a routine with multiple coin vanishes, you dilute the impact of the vanish. But if you have a reason to build up the focus on a single vanish, you can make it very powerful. So you would walk them through some of the stages you went through to learn to vanish a coin. You’ve been able to make coins slightly lighter. You’ve been able to shrink coins. But you haven’t yet made one completely vanish. Now with their attention primed, you can focus them on a very clean coin vanish (using a Raven or something similar).

Rough Draft: Something Or Other

Here’s a dumb idea I had for a trick. It relies on dual reality and an audience of some size, so it’s not anything I would use. Or anyone would use, most likely. But I find the method a little funny.

A member of the audience is brought on stage, you ask for someone with a wide knowledge of popular music from the last several decades.

A deck of blank-faced playing cards is introduced. On the blank side of each card is the name of a famous song and the artist who performed it. The deck is given out to be shuffled by a couple members of the audience, who each shuffle half. Those two halves are then mixed together.

This complete deck can be examined by someone in the audience, and it is exactly what it appears to be. The person examining the deck will confirm that all the songs are different and there are various artists represented.

You hand the deck to the on-stage participant.

They cut the cards so they’re starting at a random spot and deal cards on the table, stopping anywhere they like. You ask them to take the card they stopped at and put it in their pocket.

You tell them to show the cards before and after the one they stopped at. One card has Y.M.C.A. by the Village People on it, the other has Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega on it.

You ask them to look at the card they chose and concentrate on it. This happens while your back is to them. You have them focus on the song.

You think for a bit. “It’s a love song,” you say. Correct.

You’re struggling.

“Actually, just focus on the artist for me, okay?” They do.

“Oh!” it hits you. You pick up your pad and scribble something on it. As you write, you say. “I couldn’t get it at first. But then I saw George Harrison in my mind. Does that make sense? I thought so.” You hold up your pad to the audience to show your guess. “Is the song you’re thinking of, in fact, ‘Something,’ by The Beatles?”

You are correct.

No stooges.
The cards are genuinely shuffled.
The spectator is free to stop on any card.
You do not know where they stopped or what card they are holding until the end of the trick.

Method

The primary method comes down to this.

The audience hears, “Is the song you’re thinking of, in fact, ‘Something,’ by The Beatles?”

The person onstage hears, “Is the song you’re thinking of, in fact, something by The Beatles?”

You’re priming the audience by showing them what you wrote down, which is:

“Something”
The Beatles

The person onstage has been told that you’re “just going to focus on the artist.” So when you ask if it’s “something by the Beatles,” that doesn’t seem odd. It might seem odd to them that you end the trick there. But so be it.

The rest of the method…

26 cards with random songs on them.

26 cards with Beatles love songs on them and a mark on the back so you know they’re the Beatles songs.

Allow those separate groups to be shuffled. Then, when they’re returned to you, faro shuffle them together.

You can let someone other than the primary participant look at the deck and confirm the songs are all different and many artists are represented. They may notice a lot of Beatles, but from their P.O.V., you’ll nail the exact song at the end.

Let the onstage person cut the cards and deal through the deck. When they stop, look for the marking to know if you should tell them to put the last card they dealt or the one on top of the deck in their pocket.

When you say that you envisioned George Harrison, the audience will interpret that as a specific reference to Something—perhaps his most famous song.

Whereas the onstage person will—knowing he’s thinking about the Beatles—just assume you’re saying that was the first member that popped into your head. So that works even if he’s not holding a George Harrison song.

Again, I wouldn’t call this a good trick. There are better ways to achieve a similar effect.

But I do sometimes feel like there’s something to be gained by trying to build a trick around a sliver of a method, just as an exercise. Here, the sliver of a method is the idea that if you hear the phrase “something by the beatles” it has two different meanings.

Curtis Kam's Judo Switch

Curtis Kam shared this idea with me a couple of days ago, and I like it a lot. The psychology of the switch is similar to a switch I put in a book a couple of years ago called the Can’t Touch This Switch. Similar in motivation, at least. It also has a similar feel to the Munchhausen switch I mentioned in this post. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other precedents as well, I just don’t know enough about coin magic to say.

Curtis wrote me after last Thursday’s post on using the shuttle pass to clean up at the end of a coin routine. I don’t believe this fools people for the reasons stated in that post.

Now, when it comes to handing out items for examination, Curtis and I have different philosophies. He tells me: “I physically cringe when I see a magician end a trick by shoving the props into everyone’s hands.”

He also writes; “Sure, we know they want to examine the coin, but they also know, or at least feel, that if you are thrusting something into their hands and insisting that they examine it, it’s probably okay (and therefore you’ve switched it).”

While I understand what he’s getting at, in a casual magic situation, handing out an item for examination is the most natural thing you can do at the end of a trick.

Imagine someone found a rock that changes color when you shake it. It’s not a magic trick. It’s a real color changing rock. They shake the rock and it changes color. Now, can you image a situation where they do anything other than drop that rock into your hands to look at? What if they showed you this rock and then… put it in their pocket(?!) like a fucking psychopath

So, while I agree you should never be forcing someone to examine something (and should probably never be using the word “examine” for that matter) I also believe that ending the trick with the items in the spectator’s hands is the most natural way for a trick to end.

But I also agree with Curtis that unless the object is going directly into their hands, they’re going to assume it was switched. (Hence my issue with the shuttle pass as a clean-up.)

The Judo Switch

This is the name I’m giving to the switch because, like in my posts on “Examination Judo” linked above, the idea is to turn their suspicion against them. The more suspicious someone is, the more this will fool them. Similar to how you might turn someone’s advantages against them in judo.

The problem with the Shuttle Pass as a clean-up isn’t that you place the coin from one hand into the other. It’s that you place the coin from one hand into the other in order to hand it to the person. That’s the suspicious part.

Here’s an example of how the Judo Switch leverages suspicion for our own purposes. Let’s say that you finish the trick with the object in your right hand. You shuttle pass it for an examinable object in your left hand, as you set it off to your left out of the way.

So now you’re transferring the object from one hand to the other in order to set it somewhere on that side of you. That’s natural enough to be essentially forgotten.

And the fact that you’re not giving them the object to look at means their suspicion is still fully focused on that examinable object sitting on the table. They won’t believe it was switched because why would you switch it to not let them see it?

They want to see that coin (or whatever the object is). But they may or may not ask to see it, depending on how much they care about potentially “embarrassing” you by finding out you’re using a trick coin. If they don’t outright ask, you’ll need to engineer an opportunity for them to look at it. Maybe get up and go to the bathroom so they’re alone with the coin. Or “accidentally” knock it off the table where they can pick it up for you.

This doesn’t have to be done with coins and shuttle passes. It can be done with any object and any type of switch.

The ideal switch has continuity. We usually want a visual continuity: I see the quarter the entire time from when the cigarette goes through it until it gets handed to me. In the Judo Switch, their own suspicion provides the continuity. There’s some level of suspicion on the object while it’s involved in the trick, and that suspicion is maintained and increased as you set the object aside afterward, and the suspicion continues for the object now resting on the table. It’s one unbroken chain of suspicion, which subtly suggests there is only this one object in play.

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Here was Curtis’ original description, which condenses what I’m saying down to a few sentences.

[Referring to the cigarette through coin.] I did this trick a lot when cigarettes were everywhere, and more recently with a pen in strolling gigs. Along the way, I discovered a solution with two requirements: 1) have a decent switch; and 2) put the coin down on the table, near you, don’t hand it to them. Try a little too hard to direct their attentions to the cigarette or the pen.

Turns out, if they think examining the coin is their idea, they are much less likely to think you switched it out.

Mailbag #119 - Carefree Magic Edition

To reiterate, let’s start with this: In order to do magic that affects people, they have to embrace the experience.

If they’re indifferent or turned off by the experience, it doesn’t matter how strong the trick is. (And, in fact, sometimes a strong trick is part of what turns them off.)

People have a profound capacity for dismissing magic effects. If they don’t really enjoy the experience they might be briefly astounded but will wave it off with, “Eh, it’s just a trick.” And move on with their lives.

But with the right vibe, even an average trick will be an experience that people carry with them.

“Carefree” is a designation I’m using to apply to the ideal vibe for different aspects of the magic experience.

It applies to things like:

• Your comfort-level performing the material

• The number of conditions that need to be met for you to perform a trick. (E.g., something that must be performed seated, in low-light, while wearing a jacket is less "carefree” than something you can get into anywhere.)

• The vibe between you and the spectator

• The spectator’s comfort-level witnessing magic.

• How naturally you get into the effect.

Among other things.

To the readers for whom English isn’t a first language, “carefree” doesn’t mean that you don’t care. It means that you are without cares. Without concerns. Without tension.

I’m certainly not saying everything should just come off as some “meaningless fun.”

I’m saying you want to eliminate, as much as possible, the audience’s concerns about watching magic and their ability to pick up on the magician’s concerns of performing magic.

Think of a bad magician. He’s tense. He’s up in his own head. He’s focused on his hands. He’s not listening. He’s clearly “scripted.” He’s awkward getting into the trick. He’s seeking validation and comes off as smug or demeaning.

Spectators pick up on this and they become uncomfortable and they withdraw.

This is anti-carefree.

Carefree is about getting the flow and the vibe right. If that’s right, you can still have very deep meaningful magic, or a tension-filled performance, but those feelings will come from the premise, instead of them reading meaning and tension into your awkwardness as a performer.

The Carefree school of magic performance (which could be called “casual magic” or “jerxian” or whatever) suggests that Vibe matters first, followed by Premise/Story, and then Effect.

This is the opposite of how most magicians operate. They focus on Effect first. Maybe consider Premise. And don’t even know what I’m talking about with Vibe.

That may work for your TV Special or your stage-show. It doesn’t work great for showing magic to friends and family.

Focusing on the effect is like focusing only on how fast you can play your bass guitar. It’s interesting to watch people go nuts on the bass. And it’s cool to listen to… for 30 seconds. But what people really want is something they can groove to. A baseline that feels good.

If this subject sounds abstract and lacking somewhat in practical advice, that’s because I’m putting all these pieces together in real time. I’m sure I’ll have more practical advice on the subject as time goes on.

Now for some quick emails:

Loved the latest blog post - carefree and effortless is more fun for the magician and the audience.

One more to add - carefree is never the latest gimmick from an Alakazam email.—KH

Yes and no.

It’s fun to get new tricks and incorporate them into your repertoire. That’s one of the joys of the jobby.

But there is definitely an anti-Carefree attitude of constantly chasing the “new” thing as if this will be the trick that’s finally going to get you the reactions that you’re hoping for.

It’s like those guys who try to buy colognes with pheromones in them that are supposed to attract women. It’s not going to work. It’s not the cologne. It’s not the tricks. It’s you.

If people aren’t resonating with the tricks you’re showing them, it’s because they’re not resonating with you.

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[In last Wednesday’s post] you wrote that magic:

Frequently comes off as egocentric, try-hard, and needy. You could argue that it’s inherently those things. How else would you define learning how to do some arbitrary thing that seems impossible (but isn’t) and then showing it to people and not telling them how it’s done?

Are you suggesting we should be telling people “how things are done”? —EB

No. I’m saying that is how magic is perceived by many people—as a means to demonstrate our cleverness and dangle it over them by not explaining how we did something.

This is what magic feels like to them if your only goal is to fool them.

But if they can see that the trick is part of creating this memorable and weird experience/story for them, then they’re less likely to feel like you’re just withholding information to lord it over them.

As far as exposure goes, there are some rare examples of it being used to do something interesting or artistic. But in most cases, it comes off as desperate. Not just to me, but to non-magicians as well, I believe.

You’ll feel good doing it because you’re giving people something they want in the moment, but they’re not going to cherish this information you’re giving them long-term.

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Just want to say I’m enjoying this week’s “Carefree” posts as a unifying theory of your ideas. I hope you keep it up.

Can you explain what you mean by saying “Audience management isn’t carefree.” —KE

Audience management, by definition, means keeping the audience from doing something they might otherwise be naturally inclined to do. Don’t let them look where they want to look. Don’t let them touch what they want to touch. Don’t let them do what they want to do.

There are sometimes subtle ways of “managing” your audience, but that’s not how most magicians use the term.

“They want to examine the deck? Well, use some audience management. Put the deck away and show them another trick.” That’s the level of thought most magicians are using.

Certainly, most all tricks require some level of “control” by the performer. But when that level of control gets to the point of being described as “audience management” it usually means an abnormal, unnatural, level of control. This creates a tension. And Tense is the opposite of Carefree.

Dustings #111

Just a heads-up. I’m in Toronto where we’re doing some focus-group testing for a future release. This is one of our only times trying this outside of NYC and it’s taking a bit more time than we had anticipated. I’m way behind on emails, so if you emailed me in recent days and I haven’t gotten back to you yet, that’s why. I’ll catch up early next week.

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In the ad for Craig Petty’s Infinity Deck, it’s repeatedly suggested that it can be used for a “full act.”

“a powerhouse 10-15 act”

“A fully customizable act in one deck of cards with infinite possibilities.”

“[T] his deck ALONE could be your WHOLE close-up act.”

Similar things are said about other special, non-playing-card decks.

While I’m sure it’s true you could do a full act with these cards, I don’t recommend it.

For two reasons:

First, it lessens the novelty of the deck and the trick. I want the person to leave with a specific moment of magic crystallized in their mind. I don’t want them leaving saying, “He did a bunch of stuff with a deck of cards with pictures on them.”

Second, I’ve had David Jonathan and Dan Harlan’s Snaps for years, and the only time people have openly asked whether the deck is legit is when I’ve done multiple tricks with it. So I think doing multiple tricks with an unusual deck raises the suspicion, as opposed to normalizing the deck like you might hope.

I can understand the other argument—that you might want to portray yourself as someone who can do lots of magic with any type of deck—that makes sense intellectually. But in my experience it lessens the novelty and impact, while raising the suspicion on the cards. So my philosophy is to find the strongest thing you can do with the deck and just do that.

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While it’s not an official GLOMM booting until conviction, let’s just say I highly recommend you not hire Scott Morley, owner of Morley’s Magic Shop in New Jersey to perform for your kid’s kindergarten graduation.

This first paragraph of this article is about all you need to know.

“A pair of children's underwear and a slew of photos depicting preadolescent children engaging in sexual acts were all part of magician and theater owner Scott Morley's ‘fantasy,’ the Butler resident allegedly told authorities prior to his arrest earlier this month for possessing child pornography.”

This one is particularly sad to research, because if you look for pictures of Scott, you get a bunch of him with his wife and two little girls.

That’s right, Scott, it is. Perhaps start your math journey by learning to count up to the age of consent.

If you open up a magic shop in a small town, there’s no way you’re doing it because you think it’s a good money making proposition. There’s must be something else driving your actions. What could it be…? 🤔

I’m not saying we should toss all small-town magic shop owners in jail preemptively. But maybe before getting a permit to open such a store, we could strap them to a tumescence monitor and have them watch an episode of the Suite Life of Zach and Cody or something? Anything?

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I wonder what exactly Walmart was trying to offer me here?

This Doesn't Work Like You Think It Does: Shuttle Pass

When we were doing the focus group testing more regularly, there were certain techniques that would regularly raise suspicion from the audience. These included techniques that are used by performers all the time.

For example, the “verbal ruse” that I wrote about in this post.

Now, when I say these techniques would raise suspicion “regularly,” I don’t mean 100% of the time. But at least 50%. Sometimes something closer to 60 or 75%

In my opinion, if something draws attention to itself that regularly, it’s not really workable. I don’t know if I would use a technique that even 20% of people found questionable.

Today I want to talk about the shuttle pass.

Now, the shuttle pass itself is fine.

But I want to talk about a use for it which doesn’t work like magicians seem to think it does.

You’ve just pushed the cigarette through the quarter.

“Here,” you say, “take a look.”

I see this all the time. The shuttle pass used to “end clean.”

The problem is that this isn’t how humans hand things out. They don’t take it from one hand and put it in the other and then hand it out.

Would you like a lollipop?

Here, take this sheet of paper.

It might not look that weird to you, but only because you’ve seen it done a million times in magic.

If someone does that to you in real life, you’re in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario, and they’ve been body snatched.

In some situations, this might go unnoticed. But right at the end of the trick, where there is intense suspicion on the object, unnecessarily transferring it from one hand to the other is going to ring false to people. Whether they catch the switch or not, it doesn’t matter. They’ll feel like you did something. Sorry. I know it’s an easy way to clean-up, but you’re going to have to figure something else out.

What should I do?

Bitch, I don’t know. It’s going to depend on the item you’re switching and the situation in which you’re presenting the trick. You need to find a way to motivate handing it from one hand to the other.

For example, if you’re performing for a few people standing in a semicircle, you can show the object to the person on your right, then pass it to your left hand and give it to the person on your left to pass around. That gives you at least a somewhat plausible reason to pass the coin between your hands.

But of course that doesn’t work one-on-one.

Sometimes, if you have multiple things in play (multiple coins, or a coin and a cigarette, for example) in the process of gathering the items to hand out, you can do the switch at that point.

I don’t know. As I said, it depends on the routine and how you’re performing it. I’m not here to tell you exactly what to do. Just to point out that if your idea of “ending clean” is handing an object to yourself before handing it out, that doesn’t work like you think it does.